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Daniel MacDonald: Carbon tax has support

Posted:
08/29/2014 01:00:00 AM MDT

I applaud Tony Gagliardi's response to Susan Secord's call for a carbon tax for clarifying that Citizens' Climate Lobby isn't arguing for a state tax without nationwide regulation. Rather CCL supports a nationwide, revenue-neutral carbon tax or an option for states to meet pending EPA regulations by implementing one. Unfortunately, Mr. Gagliardi misinterprets parts of her letter and, in responding, has muddied the waters.

First of all, National Federation of Independent Business' affiliation with Regional Economic Models, Inc. wasn't cited to demonstrate allegiance to a carbon policy. Rather, it reveals the non-partisan, un-biased and economic-focused nature of findings that our economy would be stronger with WTO-compliant, revenue-neutral carbon taxes than without them.

Mr. Gagliardi cites statistics about reductions from 2005 to argue further effort is unnecessary. For the sake of brevity, I won't get into the weeds as to why one data point related to “CO2 reductions since 2005” is no more sufficient to demonstrate emissions are under control than citing a single year's average temperature is to demonstrate climate change isn't a problem. I'll simply point Mr. Gagliardi to 97 percent of the world's climate scientists for the scientific position and to Pope Francis and other spiritual leaders for the moral one.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story